... knowledge-power! learning and thinking power!" He caught his wife's arm. "See! see, Sidonie, my dear! See her enhancing in magnitude so fastly approaching!" As he spoke a puff of white vapor lifted from the object and spread out against the blue, the sunbeams turned it to silver and pearl, and a moment later came the far-away, long, wild scream ...— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... fresh in his memory, and from the oaths and unkind language of his mother he had come to the conclusion that all must die and be buried in the same manner. What became of them after death he could not fathom, but he concluded that the frost in the winter-time was a sort of cold vapor arising from the bodies of those who were dead and that such things were all governed by the great man ...— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum

... most diabolical landscape of high peaks lost in mist, with near-by slopes of gray rocks scantily covered with yellow-green grass. All was bare, wild, desolate, and drear. The wind continued to whirl down over the divide, carrying torn gray masses of vapor which cast a gloomy half light across the gruesome little meadow covered with rotting carcasses and crates of bones which filled the air with odor of ...— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... In the food upon his table, the meat, the bread, the milk, the vegetables, and the fruits, he finds the sea. Not his poetry, but his science follows the raindrop from the roof to the rivulet, on to the river, then to the ocean, then into vapor and on into rain down into the earth, then up into the tree, out into the orange, until it finally reappears as a drop of juice upon the rosy ...— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... began to go down hill through a pretty extensive tract of young beeches. I was soon in shadow myself, but the afternoon sun still colored the upmost boughs of the wood, and made a fire over my head in the autumnal foliage. A little faint vapor lay among the slim tree-stems in the bottom of the hollow; and from farther up I heard from time to time an outburst of gross laughter, as though clowns were making merry in the bush. There was something about the ...— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... heavier-than-air plane, a feat later on successfully accomplished. Nobody had piloted the way in a Yankee-made seaplane; nor had any one navigated the air passage in a monster dirigible. The three thousand miles of atmosphere lying between Europe and America still stood an uncharted sea of vapor, where every imaginable evil might lie in wait for the modern ...— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... have travelled will deny that of all cities Glasgow is apparently the least romantic. Steeped in wet, white mist, or wrapped in yellow fog vapor, all gray stone and gray sky, dirty streets, and sloppy people, it presents none of the features of a show town. Yet it has great merits; it is enterprising, persevering, intensely national, and practically religious; and people who do not ...— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld, with ineffable dismay, a vast vapor shooting from the summit of Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine tree; the trunk, blackness,—the branches, fire,—a fire that shifted and wavered in its hues with every moment, now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying ...— Standard Selections • Various

... are fatiguing. They draw the blood from the interior to the surface of the body; and during pregnancy they are particularly depressing. Vapor and steam baths have a similar action and should never be taken without the consent of a physician. They serve admirably for the treatment of rare complications of pregnancy; but, like medicine, their use should be limited to cases in which they are ...— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... beyond. The town was east, and it chanced that she had never ridden west. So, when the rolling hills of this newly beholden land lifted themselves for her contemplation, and the harvest sun, all in an angry and sanguinary glow sank in the veiled horizon, and at noon a scarf of golden vapor wavered up and down along the earth line, it was as if a new world had been made for her. Sometimes, at the coming of a storm, a whip-lash of purple cloud, full of electric agility, snapped along the ...— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie

... whence springs flow, and that when they appear, they merely issue and run out; on the contrary, they say, they are then formed and come into existence for the first time, by the liquefaction of the surrounding matter; and that this change is caused by density and cold, when the moist vapor, by being closely pressed together, becomes fluid. As women's breasts are not like vessels full of milk always prepared and ready to flow from them; but their nourishment being changed in their breasts, is there ...— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... to a second door that open'd on a wide, stone-pav'd kitchen, lit by a cheerful fire, whereon a kettle hissed and bubbled as the vapor lifted the cover. Close by the chimney corner was a sort of trap, or buttery hatch, for pushing the hot dishes conveniently into the parlor on the other side of the wall. Besides this, for furniture, the room held a broad deal table, an oak dresser, a linen ...— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... green in amethystine haze. To right and left the last spurs of the Alps descend, jutting like promontories, heaving like islands from the misty breadth below; and here and there are towers half lost in airy azure, and cities dwarfed to blots, and silvery lines where rivers flow, and distant, vapor-drowned, dim crests of Apennines. The city walls above us wave with snapdragons and iris among fig-trees sprouting from the riven stones. There are terraces over-rioted with pergolas of vine, and houses shooting forward into ...— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... fire to the most remote corners of the world.' [Footnote: Ibid., vol. I., p. 362.] He dared to call me a meteor, a shining nothing which after lighting up the sky for a short while explodes and dissolves itself into vapor. I shall prove to him and to the whole world that I am more than that, and if I kindle a fire in Europe, it shall be large enough to burn every ...— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... the soil was being prepared, the plough-teams nodded up the gentle inclines and disappeared down the other side. A thin vapor rose from the soil; it was the last of the cold evaporating in the declining spring day. Some way down a few red cottages smilingly faced the sunset, and still farther on lay the town with its eternal cloud of ...— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... on the cloud with as serene a face as that with which Mr. Yocomb had watched its approach, but now a scud of vapor swept like a sudden pallor across her disk, giving one the odd impression that she had just realized her peril, and then an abyss of darkness swallowed her up. For a few moments longer the fire burned on, and then the cloud ...— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... him a meal of fat grubs. Then he shambled on, drawn by some irresistible force. The mist which hung like a white veil over the low ground bordering the swamp was fast dissolving in curling wisps of vapor under the ardent rays of the sun. The forest was alive with bird song; squirrels chattered to him from the trees and the rattle of the kingfisher was in his ears, but Mokwa held a steady course northward, his little eyes fixed ...— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

...vapor forms, according to the temperature and other conditions of the atmosphere, from a half per cent. to four and a half per cent. of the weight of that fluid—about 1.25 per cent. being the average; carbonic acid exists in it to the extent of 1/2000th; and ammonia ...— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... could move from its place had moved; everything was wet; everything that would mould was mouldy. "A sort of perspiration" settled on the beams above. Clothes were wringing wet. The captain's party made a fire in Captain Kellett's stove, and soon started a sort of shower from the vapor with which it filled the air. The "Resolute" has, however, four fine force-pumps. For three days the captain and six men worked fourteen hours a day on one of these, and had the pleasure of finding that they freed her of water,—that she was tight still. They cut away upon ...— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... has been ripped open!" cried Tom. "The vapor is escaping! The whole bag may soon be ...— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton

... looked past him, out at the sky and the clouds of water vapor that swirled up to obscure the sun. The stars, of course, were ...— An Empty Bottle • Mari Wolf

... baths, [Footnote: These baths consist of a small hut, covered closely with buffalo-skins, into which the patient and his friends enter, carefully closing every aperture. A pile of heated stones is placed in the middle, and water is poured upon them, raising a dense vapor. They are still, 1868, in use among the Sioux and some other tribes.] where they immersed him in steam three times a week; a process from, which he thinks he derived great benefit. His strength gradually returned, in spite of his meagre fare; for there was ...— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... rate, that once there was no pond here, and now there is one; and this Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the account of that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers so well when he first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor rising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and he concluded to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still think that they are hardly to be accounted for by the action of the waves on these hills; but I observe that the surrounding hills are remarkably ...— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... if some invisible shadow had passed in mid-air across it. The actual fog bank had suddenly lost its resemblance to the shore, had lifted as a curtain, and now seemed suspended over the ship. Gradually it descended; the top-gallant and top-sails were lost in this mysterious vapor, yet the horizon line still glimmered faintly. Then another mist seemed to rise from the sea and meet it; in another instant the deck whereon they stood shrank to the appearance of a raft adrift in a faint gray sea. With the complete ...— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... sound in all the night-bound world, save once the crisp, sharp bark of a fox came across the water from the dense, dark riparian forests. The mists possessed all the upper atmosphere, but following the boat were white undiscriminated presentments on the sombre surface of the river, elusive in the vapor and suggestive of something swimming in pursuit. Once Archie pointed his mittened hand at this foaming wake, but the question died on his lips as the dank autumnal air buffeted his chill cheek. He shivered in his thin little white linen dress, meant for indoor wear only, with its smart red ...— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... you think of that sample of mixed tobacco I gave you to try?" asked the wild boarder of another, whom Mrs. Silvernail used to speak of with fear and doubt. "When heated, it readily sublimes in the form of a dense white vapor," said Mr. Arcubus, confidently, "disagreeably affecting the ...— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... him, and, if he had not heard me coming, I would have fallen over him too, but he got up in time. He rose, unsteady, long, pale, indistinct, like a vapor exhaled by the earth, and swayed slightly, misty and silent before me; while at my back the fires loomed between the trees, and the murmur of many voices issued from the forest. I had cut him off cleverly; but when actually confronting him I seemed to come ...— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... summoned, and the apparatus prepared for some "close-up" motion pictures. Under the weird green lights of the mercury vapor lamps, a director and company of players were busily enacting a dramatic scene, before a studio set. They gave little heed to the newcomer: boredom is a prime requisite of poise in ...— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... original starting-point, and already he could distinguish the red glare of angry flames leaping beneath, fanned by the wind into great sheets of fire, and sweeping forward with incredible swiftness. These might not succeed in reaching the imprisoned men, but the stifling vapor, the suffocating smoke held captive by that overhanging rock, would ...— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... fields along the avenue. Their robust chorus mingled with the whir of the cars. Soft, dark clouds were driving lakeward. The blast furnaces of the steel works in South Chicago silently opened and belched flame, and silently closed again. A rosy vapor, as from some Tartarean breathing, hovered about the mouths of the furnaces. Moment by moment these mouths opened and belched and closed. It was the fiery respiration of a gigantic beast, of a long worm whose dark body enveloped the smoky city. The ...— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... answer but the flourish of the breeze Through the black pines. Then, slowly, as the wind Parts the dense cloud-forms, leaving naught behind But shapeless vapor, through the budding trees Drifted some force unseen, and from my sight Faded my ...— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley

... power was kindled, and arose Within the sphere of that appalling fray! For, from the encounter of those wond'rous foes, A vapor like the sea's suspended spray Hung gathered; in the void air, far away, Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap, Where'er the eagle's talons made their way, Like sparks into the darkness; as they sweep, Blood stains the snowy foam ...— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... poured down in streams, squalls of wind and angry waves caused the good ship to reel and turn like one drunk, and to add to the horrors of their situation, the night was so dark they could not see half the length of the ship before them, and the fog enshrouded them in its oppressive vapor. At ten o'clock, the watch on the bowsprit called out to the lieutenant on the foredeck, and directed his attention to a clear spot which he declared to proceed from a light. Stewart at once proceeded to the stern where he found the pilot seated on the rudder, apparently watching the ...— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... the centre filtered through the spongy ground, and creamed and mantled and spread out loathsomely into a hateful swamp; and the fierce sun, beating down on its slimy surface, drew from its festering pools and mounds of refuse a vapor of death, and the prisoners breathed it; and the reek of unwashed and diseased bodies crowding close on each other, and the sickening, pestilential odor of a huge camp without sewerage or system of policing, made the air a horror, and the prisoners ...— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... lower sky; the Lipari islands, Stromboli and its volcano, floating upon it like small dusky clouds; and the Calabrian coast visible, I should suppose, for two hundred miles, like a long horizontal bank of vapor! As the sun rose, the great pyramidal shadow of AEtna was cast across the island, and all beneath it rested in twilight-gloom. Turning from this wonderful scene, we looked down into the crater, on whose verge we lay. It was a fearful sight, apparently more than a thousand feet in depth, and ...— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... going over the whole earth—hand-in-hand with Christianity. The ancient temples of slavery, rendered venerable alone by their antiquity, are crumbling into dust. Ancient prejudices are flying before the light of truth—are dissipated by its rays, as the idle vapor by the bright sun. The ...— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds; and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token ...— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... death was variously understood. By some it was ascribed to the consequences of an indigestion, occasioned either by the quantity of the wine, or the quality of the mushrooms, which he had swallowed in the evening. According to others, he was suffocated in his sleep by the vapor of charcoal, which extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome moisture of the fresh plaster. But the want of a regular inquiry into the death of a prince, whose reign and person were soon ...— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... bitterly cold, and the rider was buttoned up to the throat. The air was damp; a dense veil of vapor lay on the valley and hid half the fells; the wintery dawn, with its sunless sky, had not the strength to rend it asunder; the wind had veered to the north, and was now dank and ...— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... table in the middle of the room, "Momma" had placed an enormous tin dish-pan piled high with dirty dishes, over which she was pouring the contents of the kettle. Steam rose in clouds, half-veiling her big, fierce face which, seen through holes in the vapor, was like that of a ...— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... of brimstone words and blots and gobs of gloom. And yet when I am extra good and say my prayers at night, And mind my ma, and do the chores, and speak to folks polite, My bottle spreads a rainbow-mist, and from the vapor fine Ten thousand troops from fairyland come riding in a line. I've seen them on their chargers race around my study chair, They opened wide the window and rode forth upon the air. The army widened as it went, and into myriads grew, O how the lances shimmered, ...— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... Miniver never stated an argument clearly, that she was never embarrassed by a sense of self-contradiction, and had little more respect for consistency of statement than a washerwoman has for wisps of vapor, which made Ann Veronica critical and hostile at their first encounter in Morningside Park, became at last with constant association the secret of Miss Miniver's growing influence. The brain tires of resistance, and when it meets again and again, incoherently active, the same phrases, the ...— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... turn aside? Will she espy the dark form in the deep shade of the orange, and, with one piercing scream, wheel and vanish? She draws near. She approaches the jasmine; she raises her arms, the sleeves falling like a vapor down to the shoulders; rises upon tiptoe, and plucks a spray. O Memory! Can it be? Can it be? Is this his quest, or is it lunacy? The ground seems to Monsieur Vignevielle the unsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she is now, if she but turn toward ...— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... Margaret cherished a trust in her powers, a confidence in her destiny, and an ideal of her being, place and influence, so lofty as to be extravagant. In the morning-hour and mountain-air of aspiration, her shadow moved before her, of gigantic size, upon the snow-white vapor. ...— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... gray when the assault began. Their first warning came when a small object was tossed into the lobby. It exploded in a cloud of white vapor. ...— The End of Time • Wallace West

... enter to them a small boy with a cigarro of the bigness of a rolling-pin and puffs the smoke thereof into the face of each warrior, from the eldest to the youngest; while they, putting their hand funnel-wise round their mouths, draw into the sinuosities of the brain that more than Delphic vapor of prophecy; which boy presently falls down in a swoon, and being dragged out by the heels and laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro, till he is dragged out likewise; and so on till the tobacco is finished, and the seed of wisdom has sprouted in every soul into the tree ...— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... hand gripped with all its strength a throat as warm, as apparently fleshy, as my own; and yet, with this living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld nothing! Not even an outline,—a vapor! ...— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... the tribe, and were called in and regularly paid as physicians; but this position could only be attained by undergoing certain ordeals, which were looked upon as a compact with the spirits of the air. The process of the vapor bath was first endured; severe fasting followed, accompanied by constant shouting, singing, beating a sort of drum, and smoking. After these preliminaries the jugglers were installed by extravagant ceremonies, performed ...— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... my belt I took the opalescent vial with its one partially used pellet. I dumped the pellet out. It was spoiling! The exposure to the air and the moisture of my tongue, had ruined it! I realized the catastrophe, as I held its crumbling, deliquescing fragments on my palm it melted into vapor and was gone! ...— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings

... camp-fire," decided Tad, studying the wisps of vapor that were curling lazily up on ...— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin

... the scientist showed them where there was one in the handle of the steel rod. "As soon as that is pressed, it admits a liquid to the chemicals and the oxygen gas is formed, rising all around you, like a protecting vapor. ...— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood

... us a good illustration of the lesson of liberality which our Saviour taught. The waters of the ocean are spread out for thousands of miles. As the sun shines on the surface of the ocean, it makes the water warm, and turns it into vapor, like the steam that comes from the boiling kettle. This vapor rises into the air, and helps to form the clouds that are floating there. These clouds sail over the land, and pour out the water that is in them, in refreshing and fertilizing showers of rain. This rain makes the rills ...— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton

... to be seen, as they would be in reality, rising brightly up against the deep blue heaven of the south, the azure gleaming through their hollows; unless perchance a slight breath of refined, pure, pale vapor finds its way from time to time out of them into the light air; their tiled caps casting deep shadows on their white surfaces, and their tout ensemble causing no interruption to the feelings excited by the Moresco arches and grotesque ...— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... wind dropped at dusk or dawn a whitish fog crept out of the ground, so that rifles were clammy to the touch and a blanket of moisture settled on every stick in the dugouts, and nothing could be seen through the veil of vapor to the enemy's lines, where ...— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... likened in the Bible to a pilgrimage, a tale that is told, a flower that soon withers or is cut down by the mower's scythe, a dream, a sleep, a vapor, a shadow, a handbreadth; a thread cut by ...— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley

... accumulation of mist rose higher and yet higher, and appeared to draw nearer with immense rapidity. It seemed as though the whole atmosphere was gradually becoming condensed, and precipitating its invisible watery vapor so as to make it visible in far-extending fog banks. It was not wind, therefore, that brought on the clouds, for the surface of the water was smooth and unruffled, but it was the character of the atmosphere itself from which this change was wrought. And still, ...— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian summer, when everything is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave on the beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the blue of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor make all earth look dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear-cut outlines of the northern landscape all those mysteries of light and shade which impart such ...— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... our bosom, to hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest, the sharpest conflicts; to flatter ourselves that popular resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations, and popular vapor will vanquish our foes. Let us consider the issue. Let us look to the end. Let us weigh and consider before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrific struggle this country ...— Tea Leaves • Various

... it came to pass after I saw these things, I saw the vapor of darkness, that it passed from off the face of the earth; and behold, I saw multitudes who had not fallen because of the great and ...— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... curled the smoke of my cigar, With the lamplight gleaming through it like a mist-enfolded star;— And as I gazed, the vapor like a curtain rolled away, With a sound of bells that tinkled, and the clatter of ...— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... deep that when it issued again from between his lips it was a most transparent, bluish vapor. Fear came upon Donnegan. Not fear, surely, of the fat man, helpless in his invalid's chair, but fear of the mind working ceaselessly behind those hazy eyes. He turned without a word and went to the door. The moment it opened under ...— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... my acquaintance invariably is exceptional. No sooner had the outlines of Madeira melted and blended into the soft darkness of a summer night than we appeared to sail straight into tropic heat and a sluggish vapor, brooding on the water like steam from a giant geyser. This simmering, oily, exhausting temperature carried us close to the line. "What is before us," we asked each other languidly, "if it be hotter than this? How can mortal man, woman, ...— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... over the Lead Vapor Mountains from the southern hemisphere was through The Pass, a legalized city of vice. On one side The Pass was flanked by the Bubbling Zinc Pits and on the other side it was skirted by the Fluoride River, and man had not yet devised any way to navigate ...— The Wealth of Echindul • Noel Miller Loomis

... their sap is composed chiefly of water. Whenever vegetable matter is destroyed by burning, decay, or otherwise, its hydrogen and oxygen unite and form water, which is parted with usually in the form of an invisible vapor. The atmosphere of course contains greater or less quantities of watery vapor arising from this cause and from the evaporation of liquid water. This vapor condenses, forming ...— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... no previous preperation of guting &c and will cure in 24 hours. the natives do not appear to be very scrupelous about eating them when a little feated.- the fresh sturgeon they keep for many days by immersing it in water. they coock their sturgeon by means of vapor or steam. the process is as follows. a brisk fire is kindled on which a parcel of stones are lad. when the fire birns down and the stones are sufficiently heated, the stones are so arranged as to form a tolerable level surface, the ...— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... watch'd their numerous fires, As when around the clear bright moon, the stars Shine in full splendor, and the winds are hush'd, The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland-heights 645 Stand all apparent, not a vapor streaks The boundless blue, but ether open'd wide All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd;[17] So numerous seem'd those fires the bank between Of Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece, 650 In prospect all of Troy; a thousand fires, Each watch'd by fifty warriors ...— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... light background of the lace curtain, and showed him to be a man of considerable refinement of feature. He did not make an actually solid black silhouette against the light, neither was the figure translucent, but was rather like an object seen through a vapor or through a sheet of ...— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... geological knowledge first begins for us) has to be looked for where the continents are formed and the vegetable life preponderates on earth: and that is the carboniferous period. The meridian altitude of the fourth day must have been reached where for the first time the covering of vapor and clouds of the earthly atmosphere permanently parted, and sun, moon, and stars became visible: and geology finds this time in the period which lies between the carboniferous period and the trias—in the Permian period, as it is called in England, ...— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... was not nice. It was the vapor of death, freighted with millions and millions of germs. We always took another drink when we saw it going up from the dead and dying, and usually we took two or three more drinks, mixing them exceptionally stiff. Also, we made it a rule to take an additional ...— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... that no one loved me. On certain days, when my happiness turned my head, I went at night and kissed the spot where, to me, your feet had left their luminous traces. The air you had breathed was balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with ...— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac

... evaporation from the surface of water being much greater than from the land, clouds that are wafted by the winds from the sea to the land, condense their vapor upon the colder hills and mountain sides, and yield rain, so that high lands near the sea or other large bodies of water, from which the winds generally blow, have a greater proportion of rainy days and a greater fall of rain than lands ...— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French

... her babes that waked her from slumber. The fire was slowly dying; the sun was looking down coldly from the leaden sky; slowly his beams were obscured by dark, sullen masses of vapor, which at last curtained the whole heavens. Rain! When she sat watching in the darkness, a few hours before, she thought nothing could make her condition worse. But an impending rain-storm which, thirty-six hours before, would have been hailed as merciful and saving, would now only ...— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... It was thus that Monte-Cristo once entered the room of Valentine de Villefort. But this was not Monte-Cristo. As he reached the bed he extended his arm and held to the girl's face the handkerchief, from which exhaled a blue vapor. ...— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... a short stage on their journey, October 11, the party stopped to trade with the Indians, their stock of provisions being low. They were able to purchase a quantity of salmon and seven dogs. They saw here a novel kind of vapor bath which is thus ...— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... imitated by another and then each of the rest in turn, and according to their disposition, manners, or social standing, would open their mouth noisily, or modestly cover with the hand the gaping cavity from which the breath issued in a vapor. ...— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... which were navigating the river she had the most terrific appearance when she was making her passage. The first steam-boats used dry pine for fuel, which sends forth a column of ignited vapor many feet above the flue and whenever the fire is stirred a galaxy of sparks fly off, and in the night have a very beautiful and brilliant appearance. This uncommon light first attracted the attention of the crews of other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and ...— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... form. If it were induced by some manner of persuasion to believe that something of the human being survives death, it then is so blind as to believe that the beast also survives; and that the something which lives after death is only a subtle exhalation of life, like a vapor, constantly falling back to its corpse, or is something vital without sight, hearing or speech, and so is blind, deaf and dumb, soaring about and cogitating. Self-love entertains many other insanities ...— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg

... before had been unusually dark. A thick veil of clouds overspread the heavens and hid the stars. Moon there was none, for the faint silver crescent that gleamed for a moment through the swift-sailing wisps of vapor had dropped beneath the horizon soon after tattoo, and the mournful strains of "taps," borne on the rising wind, seemed to signal "extinguish lights" to the entire firmament as well as to Fort Sibley. There was a dance of some kind at the ...— From the Ranks • Charles King

... eastern ridge, just below the extreme summit, hot sulphurous gases and vapor escape with a hissing, bubbling noise from a fissure in the lava. Some of the many small vents cast up a spray of clear hot water, which falls back repeatedly until wasted in vapor. The steam and spray seem to ...— Steep Trails • John Muir

... the church tower finished with its cross and iron weather cock. Everything seemed as tranquil as in the best days of peace. Suddenly he noticed that the grove was vomiting forth something noisy and penetrating—a bubble of vapor accompanied by a deafening report. Something was hurtling through the air with a strident curve. Then a roof in the village opened like a crater, vomiting forth flying wood, fragments of plaster and broken furniture. All the interior of the house seemed to be escaping in a stream of smoke, ...— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... and cracking the rocks by its heat, helps in another way to make soils. It warms the water that has been grinding soil on the beach or along the river banks and causes some of it to evaporate. This vapor rises, forms a cloud and floats away in the air. By and by the vapor forms into rain drops which may fall on the top of some mountain. These rain drops may wash loosened particles from the surface or crevices of exposed rocks. These drops are joined by others until, by and by, they form ...— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... life the mouth appeared to add that none of those promises would be fulfilled. Ingenuous youths (for there were a few to be found in the Guards of that day) privately wondered whether, in the most intimate moments, it were possible to speak familiarly to this White Lady, this starry vapor slidden down from the Milky Way. This system, which answered completely for some years at a stretch, was turned to good account by women of fashion, whose breasts were lined with a stout philosophy, for they could cloak no inconsiderable exactions with ...— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... by the vapor of water, we must consider that it is composed of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen, and that one volume disappears; or that one-third of the whole atomic motion is consumed by the interference of the vibrations of the ether, necessary to unite the atoms, and ...— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... autumn at home, but we could not realize the fact. When clear days came, they were so warm, so glinting with sunlight, that it seemed all the world must be bathed in glory. It would rain steadily for a week or ten days, and then there would come one of those clear days when every breath of vapor was blown out of the sky, the heavens were a field of turquoise, and the mountain chains were printed against ...— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... rather be a toad, And live upon the vapor of a dungeon, Than keep a corner in the thing I love For ...— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... I looked out over a wilderness of roofs to the North River and the Palisades tinged with a purple light. The ferry boats and tugs plying over the water in every direction, the noise of the steam whistles, and the clouds of white vapor floating on the clear air, made an ...— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... that has gained the love of one good, splendid, pure woman, his life has been a success, no matter if he dies in the ditch; and if he gets to be a crowned monarch of the world, and never had the love of one splendid heart, his life has been an ashen vapor. ...— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... delightful picture. On the dew-sprinkled grass of the little clearing about the cottage were merrily romping the dog, Rose and a small child. Beyond, lay the mountain's wooded descent, rich in variegated greens and seemingly rising like an island shore from a sea of pearly vapor, tinted with delicate mauve, rose and amber by the sun, which had itself not yet risen above the valley mist. Scrambling into his outer garments, the man ran down to join them ...— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... mortal body, with her sweet symbolism, "You have scarred my bosom, but you are forgiven"; then a glimpse of the soul as a floating consciousness without very definite form or place, but dimly conceived of as an upright column of vapor or mist several times larger than life-size, so far as it could be said to have any size at all, wandering about and living a thin and half-awake life for want of good old-fashioned solid matter to come down upon with foot and ...— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Cassiopeia, on the verge of the Milky-way, within whose swarm of stellar worlds most of these apparent stars have made their appearance. Tycho Brahe, in seeking to account for this stellar phenomenon, advanced the theory that stars might be "formed and molded out of cosmical vapor," or "vapory celestial matter," as the elder Herschel put it, "which becomes luminous as it condenses (conglomerates) into fixed stars." But any such rapid condensation of "vapory matter," in the light of Laplace's "nebular theory," is manifestly too absurd for scientific recognition. ...— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... rewarded it. Our cup was brimming and sparkling. There was a glowing vitality in the western breeze that blew all the clouds from our spirits, and shaped those on the mountain-sides into ever-changing beauty, or drove them off the radiant summits. We laughed, as the vapor condensing into the smallest of hailstones, came pelting in our faces as if the elements had turned boys and threw them in sport! What may not Nature be to us—play-fellow, consoler, teacher, religious minister! Strange ...— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... as the voices of nature. And in the early morning a look from the chamber window perhaps may show a locomotive whirling down the valley around the sharp curves with its white streamer flung out upon the green hillside, and seeming like a snowy ribbon cut from the huge mass of vapor which lies low upon the surface of ...— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... that in the universe fill the mind with memories that arc like starlight. The glancing tribes of flying fish became events. We followed the twentieth parallel of longitude north of the equator, right on, straight as an arrow's flight is the long run of the ship—her vapor and the bubbles that break from the waters vanishing, so that we were as trackless when we had passed one breadth after another of the globe, as the lonesome canoes of the Indians ...— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... yards east of the main entrance is constructed a wig/iwam or sweat lodge, to be used by the candidate, both to take his vapor baths and to receive final ...— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... a commotion in my fiery furnace. "It can't be done," cried the people below. Then a full, rich voice rang out: "Raise the ladder higher!" Do you know, I felt instantly that this was the voice of my rescuer. "Hurry!" cried those below. Then a fresh cloud of vapor penetrated the room. I had had my share of the thick smoke, and lay prostrate on the ground ...— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... granddaughters and the great granddaughters of those fragile creatures, with wasp waists and tiny feet, who lived back in the Early Victorian period and suffered from megrims and vapors. I'll venture that none of this generation ever had a vapor in her life; and as for megrims, she wouldn't know one if she met it in the big road. She may be muscle-bound and throw a splint sometimes, or get the Charley horse; but megrims are not ...— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... almost circular, and the hole was also round, but not in the center of the land. It was an immense cavity, so wide they could not see across, and as for the depth they could only guess at it. Looking down they could only see rolling masses of vapor and clouds caused by the water which poured down from the ocean with ...— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... falls is Goat Island, dividing them into two unequal parts, one of which forms the American, and the other the Horse Shoe Fall, so called from its shape, which is on the Canada side. As we gaze upon this remarkable exhibition of natural force, a column of vapor rises two hundred feet above the avalanche of waters, white as snow where it is absorbed into the skies, the base being wreathed with perpetual rainbows. A canal, starting from a convenient point above the falls and extending to a point below the rapids, utilizes ...— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... level, to rest and sparkle like a gem on the bosom of that old mountain-god, Olympus. Then, still higher, on the very summit—for even here, in the glare of this great crater, where evaporation rains upward from the sea, all vapor is quickly condensed and frozen on the higher peaks—we see, like the tresses of the aged, the pearly snow and ice overhanging the Olympian brow. Aye, may ...— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... this mountain-range, I think it not out of place to describe its extent and situation, for, as is well known, it encompasses a great part of the earth with its continuous chain. Beginning 53 at the Indian Ocean, where it faces the south it is warm, giving off vapor in the sun; where it lies open to the north it is exposed to chill winds and frost. Then bending back into Syria with a curving turn, it not only sends forth many other streams, but pours from its plenteous breasts ...— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes

... he read again the tales of Liba, and the mournful bride of Argenfels, and Siegfried, the mighty slayer of the dragon. Meanwhile the mists had risen from the Rhine, and the whole air was filled with golden vapor, through which hebeheld the sun, hanging in heaven like a drop of blood. Even thus shone the sun within him, amid the wintry vapors, uprising from the valley of the shadow of death, through which flowed the stream of his ...— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... was Blackbeard's ship hard in the sand which had gripped her keel while she was steering to enter the Cherokee Inlet. There was no pearly vapor of swamp mist out here to shroud her from attack. The air was clear and bright, with a robust breeze which stirred a flashing surf on the shoals. Under lower sails, the two sloops watchfully crept nearer until their crews could examine the stranded brig and read the story of her plight. ...— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... The method herein described of heating air charged with hydrocarbon vapor, so as to render it non-condensable previous to its delivery as an illuminating gas, for the ...— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... the antagonist of heat, {yet} a moist vapor creates all things, and this discordant concord is suited for generation; when, therefore, the Earth, covered with mud by the late deluge, was thoroughly heated by the aethereal sunshine and a penetrating warmth, it produced species {of creatures} ...— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... could not see far for the fog. There was that strange Arctic hush and misty light over everything—that grayish-white light caused by the reflection from the ice being cast high into the air against masses of vapor, the dark land offering a wonderful contrast. We were not sure whether this was the land near Taimur Sound or that by Cape Palander, but were agreed that in any case it would be best to hold a northerly course, so as to keep clear of Almquist's Islands, which Nordenskioeld marks on his map as ...— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... the use they make of their vapor baths. "When about to decide on some important measure, they go into them, thus cleansing the skin and carrying off any peccant humors, so that the body may, as little as possible, impede the mind by any ...— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... sand ballast had been allowed to run out Tom was obliged to open the gas-valves and let some of the lifting vapor escape, or ...— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton

... sky-blue, and then working into that, with the brush, the melting clouds, producing the grays I wanted on the canvas. It imitated the effect of nature logically, as the pigment imitated the mingling of the vapor with the blue sky; but Ruskin said this was incorrect, and that the colors must be laid like mosaic, side by side, in the true tint. Another discouragement! I used to lay in the whole subject, beginning with the sky, rapidly and broadly, and, when it was dry, returning to the foreground and finishing ...— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... which arises what appear to be the sprouting leaves of a plant, probably maize (plate LXIV, 30, 31). This is interpreted by Dr Seler as the heart just taken from the sacrificed victim, the leaf-shape figures representing the vapor rising from the warm blood and flesh. It is unnecessary to give here his reasons for this belief, as the suggestion presented below, although wholly different, gives to the symbol in this place substantially ...— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas

... been observed at a very early period that the goats feeding on Parnassus were thrown into convulsions when they approached a certain long deep cleft in the side of the mountain. This was owing to a peculiar vapor arising out of the cavern, and one of the goatherds was induced to try its effects upon himself. Inhaling the intoxicating air, he was affected in the same manner as the cattle had been, and the inhabitants of the surrounding ...— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... Across the wild valley of the Torbido, about two miles distant, rose the volcano of Antuco. The mountain roared like some enormous monster, and vomited red smoke, mingled with torrents of sooty flame. The surrounding peaks appeared on fire. Showers of red-hot stones, clouds of reddish vapor and rockets of lava, all combined, presented the appearance of glowing sparkling streams. The splendor of the spectacle increased every instant as night deepened, and the whole sky became lighted up with a dazzling reflection of the blazing crater, while the sun, gradually ...— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... discharge destroy apparatus in series with the fuse. There are two reasons for this: One is that lightning discharges act very quickly and may have destroyed apparatus before heating the fuse enough to melt it; the other reason is that when a fuse is operated with enough current even to vaporize it, the vapor serves as a conducting path for an instant after being formed. This conducting path may be of high resistance and still allow currents to flow through it, because of the extremely high pressure of the lightning ...— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller

... below the diaphragm, it becomes diseased before it reaches the lungs, and after renovation, but little good blood is left. Then the dead matter is separated from blood and blown out at the lungs while in vapor. Thus nutriment is not great enough to keep up normal supply. In this stage the patient is low in flesh and feeble generally, because of trouble with blood and chyle to pass normally ...— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... objects look like UFO's because of some odd quirk in the human mind. A star or planet that has been in the sky every day of the observer's life suddenly "takes off at high speed on a highly erratic flight path." Or a vapor trail from a high-flying jet—seen a hundred times before by the observer—becomes ...— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... doctrine which makes Space, Matter, and Force eternal and the causes of all phenomena. This, he says, assumes the idea of self-existence, which is unthinkable. The second theory he makes equivalent to Pantheism. "The precipitation of vapor," he says, "into cloud, aids us in forming a symbolic conception of a self-evolved universe;" but, he adds, "really to conceive self-creation, is to conceive potential existence passing into actual ...— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... delights; what it hath saved, that it might last, of his dearest affections, or of whatever else the amorous springtime gave his thoughts of contentment, then unvaluable; and he shall find that all the art which his elder years have, can draw no other vapor out of these dissolutions, than heavy, secret, and sad sighs. He shall find nothing remaining, but those sorrows, which grow up after our fast-springing youth; overtake it, when it is at a stand; and overtopped ...— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... the engine came rocking toward them, gathering impetus on the sharp grade. Had Scottie missed his trick? But when the thunder of the iron on iron was deafening Andrew, and the engine seemed almost upon them, there was a cloud of white vapor that burst out on either side of it and the brakes were jumped on; the wheels skidded, screaming on the tracks. The engine lurched past; Andrew caught a glimpse of Scottie, a crouched, masked form in the cab of the engine, with a ...— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... two or three addresses, and he went comforted across the square to the east wing, whose Georgian mass merged without skyline into the fuliginous vapor which Londoners call the sky. The lights behind the blindless windows illuminated interiors and showed men bending over desks and drawing-boards, some near the windows with their faces sharply cut in profile. Septimus wondered vaguely whether ...— Septimus • William J. Locke

... from wall to wall and formed a roof: then a gust of wind from a side-canon made a rift in them and the blue heavens were revealed, or they dispersed in patches which settled on the crags, while puffs of vapor issued out of the smaller gulches, and occasionally formed bars across the canon, one above another, each opening a different vista. When they discharged their rains little rills first trickled down the cliff, and these soon became brooks: the brooks grew into creeks and tumbled ...— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various